As the last period of study drew to an end on Tuesday afternoon, the hearts of the four girl chums beat a trifle faster than usual. What if after all their conjectures were to prove erroneous, and Mabel Allison was not the long-lost daughter of the woman in the hospital? All they had to go by was the remarkable resemblance between the two, and the slight emotion displayed by Mrs. Allison at the mention of Mabel's name.
When Grace had repeated the details of their call at the hospital to Jessica, the latter had turned very white, but had said bravely, "I expected it. We will go with you on Tuesday. Shall I prepare Mabel for it?"
"No," Grace had replied. "We may find ourselves mistaken, and think what a cruel disappointment it would be to Mabel. I don't mean by that Jessica, that Mabel is anxious to leave you, but you know perfectly well that the desire of Mabel's life is that she may some day find her parents."
In almost utter silence the four chums, accompanied by Mabel Allison, crossed the campus and turned into High School Street at the close of the afternoon session on Tuesday. Each girl seemed busy with her own thoughts.
"What has come over you girls?" inquired Mabel curiously. "When four of the liveliest girls in school become mum as the proverbial oyster, surely something is going to happen."
"'Coming events cast their shadows before'" said Anne half dreamily.
"Well, I wish they'd stop casting shadows over my little playmates then," laughed Mabel.
At this remark Grace made an effort to appear unconcerned.
"Are you going to play on the junior basketball team this year, Mabel?" she asked, by way of changing the subject.
"I don't know," replied Mabel. "I feel as though I ought to study every minute I am in High School, in order to be more thoroughly capable of earning my own living. I don't expect to be forever dependent upon my friends."
"Dependent, indeed," sniffed Jessica. "You know perfectly well, you bad child, that papa and I have been the gainers since you came to us, and now—" she stopped just in time.
"'And now,' what?" asked Mabel.
"Here we are at the hospital," broke in Nora without giving Jessica time to answer.
The little party waited what seemed to them an interminable length of time; although it was in reality not more than five minutes before the attendant returned with the news that they might see the patient in 47.
Grace had purposely voiced their request in so low a tone that Mabel had not heard her mention the patient's name, and she accompanied the four girls without the faintest idea of what their call might mean to her.
"Now for it," breathed Grace, as they paused at the door of 47.
"Come in," said a sweet voice, in answer to the attendant's knock, and the five girls were ushered into Mrs. Allison's presence.
"How are my young friends, to-day!" she cried gayly, rising from the easy chair in which she was sitting and coming forward with out-stretched hands.
"Very well, indeed," replied Grace, Anne and Nora in a breath as they shook hands.
"Mrs. Allison," said Grace hurriedly, "these are my friends, Miss Jessica Bright and Miss Mabel Allison."
The woman who was in the act of acknowledging the introduction to Jessica started violently when Grace pronounced Mabel's name, dropped Jessica's hand and began to tremble as she caught sight of Mabel, who stood behind Jessica, an expression of amazement in her brown eyes, that the patient's name should be the same as her own.
"Who—who—" gasped the woman, pointing at Mabel, then overcome sank into her chair, covering her face with her hands.
Grace sprang to her side in an instant, kneeling beside her chair.
"Mrs. Allison," she cried impulsively. "Forgive me. I should not have startled you so. I did not really know, although I felt sure that—"
But Mrs. Allison had uncovered her face and was looking eagerly at Mabel, who stood the picture of mystification.
"Who is that young girl who bears the name of my baby, and where did she come from?" asked the patient hoarsely.
"Speak to her," whispered Jessica, pushing Mabel forward.
"I am Mabel Isabel Allison—" began Mabel, but before she could proceed further the woman had risen, and clasping the girl in her arms, began smoothing her hair and kissing her, laughing and crying hysterically. "You are my baby girl that I lost long ago, my own little Mabel. I know it. I know it."
"Mrs. Allison," said Grace firmly, placing her arm around the sobbing woman, who seemed to have entirely lost control of her emotions, "try and be calm. There is so much to tell. Will you listen to me? And you must sit down, you were not strong enough for this. We should have waited."
Mrs. Allison partially released Mabel from her embrace, though she still held her hand, and allowed Grace to gently push her back toward her chair.
"I don't quite understand you, my dear," she said brokenly. "But I am sure that I have found my own dear little child."
"And I am sure of it, too," replied Grace. "In fact, we have suspected it since the day we first saw you at the station. We noticed the marked resemblance between you and Mabel, and when you told us your name was Allison we all felt that you might be Mabel's mother. Do you feel strong enough to hear our story and to tell us yours?"
"Tell me quickly," exclaimed Mrs. Allison eagerly, recovering in a measure from her violent agitation. "I must know the truth. It seems incredible that I should find my lost baby girl alive and in good hands. I am surely dreaming. It cannot be true. Yet she has the same sweet, serious expression in her brown eyes that she had in babyhood. Even her middle name, Isabel, that her father insisted upon giving her because it is mine!"
Anne, dreading another outbreak, gently interposed. "Try and be calm, Mrs. Allison, while we tell you about Mabel."
Then Anne began with the winning of the freshman prize by Mabel at the close of her freshman year, and the interest she had aroused in the girl chums, and followed with the story of her adoption by the Phi Sigma Tau.
Mrs. Allison listened in rapt attention until Anne had finished. "God is good," she murmured. "A higher power surely willed that Mabel should find true and worthy friends."
Then she began questioning Mabel about her life in the orphanage. Did Mabel have any recollection of the day she was brought there? Had Mary Stevens, the attendant, ever described the clothing that she had worn when found?
"I have the baby pins I wore with me. Jessica asked me to wear them to-day," replied Mabel, who looked like a person just awakened from a deep sleep. She had not yet reached a full comprehension of what it all meant.
"Let me see them," cried Mrs. Allison.
Mabel mechanically detached one of the little gold pins from her collar and handed it to Mrs. Allison, who examined it closely for a moment, then dropping it with a little cry, again clasped Mabel in her arms.
"They are the pins I had specially made and engraved for you," she said. "There is no longer any doubt. You are my lost child."
At these words a light of complete understanding seemed to dawn upon Mabel, and with a cry of rapture she wound her arms about her mother's neck.
It was a joyful, though rather a trying moment for the four chums, who were seized with a hysterical desire to laugh and cry in the same breath. Grace made a slight motion toward the door, which her friends were not slow to comprehend. It was her intention to slip quietly away and leave the mother and daughter alone with their new-found happiness.
Before she could put her plan into execution, however, Mrs. Allison divined her intention and turning quickly toward her, said, "Don't go, Grace. I feel as though you girls belonged to me, too. Besides, you have not heard my part of this story yet."
"Perhaps you are hardly strong enough to tell us after so much excitement," deprecated Grace.
"My dear, I feel as though I had just begun to live," answered Mrs. Allison. "The past has been one long dreary blank. If you only knew the years of agony I have passed through. When you hear my story you will understand why this reunion is little short of miraculous.
"My home is in Denver. Mabel was born there," continued Mrs. Allison. "Fourteen years ago this summer my husband and I decided to spend the summer in Europe, taking with us our baby daughter, Mabel, and her nurse.
"On the morning that we were to sail, circumstances arose that made it necessary for my husband and myself to be in New York until almost sailing time. He therefore sent the nurse, a French woman, who was thoroughly familiar with the city, on ahead to the vessel, with Mabel in her care. We had barely time to catch the boat and were met by the nurse, who said that she had left Mabel asleep in one of the state rooms engaged for us. It was not until we had put out to sea that we discovered that Mabel was missing, and a thorough search of the ship was at once made. The nurse persisted in her statement that Mabel went aboard with her. Every nook and cranny of the ship was overhauled, but my child could not be found, and the supposition was that she had in some way fallen overboard.
"I was distracted with grief, and nearly lost my reason, and when we reached the other side I passed into a long illness. It was many weeks before I returned to consciousness of my affairs, and the terrible realization that my baby was gone forever. I felt as though I could not face the future without her. I had scarcely recovered from the first shock attending my great loss, when my husband contracted typhoid fever and died after an illness of five weeks.
"We were in Florence, Italy, at the time and I prayed that I might die, too. It was during those dark hours that Mrs. Gibson proved her friendship for me. She sailed for Italy the instant she received the cablegram announcing my husband's death, and brought me back to America with her. I spent a year with her in her New York home, before returning to Denver. Since then I have never been east until this summer.
"Four months ago I received a letter from the nurse who had charge of Mabel on the day of her disappearance. It was a great surprise to me, as she had left us directly after we landed with the intention of returning to France. But the news the letter contained was a far greater surprise, for she stated that Mabel had never gone aboard the vessel.
"The nurse had had some personal business to attend to before going aboard, and in order to save time had taken Mabel with her. In some inexplicable manner Mabel had strayed from her side. She had made frantic search for the child and finally, not daring to go to us with the truth, had conceived the idea of making us believe that she had taken Mabel aboard the ship. She had bribed the purser, a Frenchman whom she knew, to corroborate her story, and had succeeded in her treacherous design.
"She wrote that she had longed over and over again to confess the truth, but had not dared to do so. She had heart trouble, she said, and her days were numbered. Therefore she felt that she must confess the truth before it became too late.
"You can imagine," said Mrs. Allison, "the effect this letter had upon me. For fourteen years I had mourned my child as dead. It seemed infinitely worse to hear that she had not died then, but was perhaps alive, and in what circumstances?
"The day I received the letter I took the train for the east, wiring the Gibsons to meet me, and aided by them engaged the best detective service upon the case. There was little or nothing to furnish us with a clue, for the nurse's lying statement had misled us; we were out at sea before we knew positively that Mabel had disappeared, and my long illness in Europe, followed by my husband's death kept me from instituting a thorough search of New York City.
"I was bound for New York in answer to a summons from the men engaged on the case, when this accident occurred. Mr. Gibson had offered to make the journey for me, but I felt that I alone must hear the first news—and to think that through that blessed accident I stumbled upon my little girl." She ceased speaking and with streaming eyes again clasped Mabel in a fond embrace.
The chums found their own eyes wet, during this recital, but of the four, Jessica appeared to be the most deeply moved. Mabel had meant more to her than to the others, and she found herself facing the severest trial that had so far entered her young life. She drew a deep breath, then went bravely over to Mrs. Allison, saying with quivering lips:
"It is very, very hard to give Mabel up. She is the child of our sorority, but she belongs most of all to me. She is the dearest girl imaginable, and neither hardship nor poverty have marred her. She is sweet, unselfish and wholesome, and always will be. I am glad, glad, glad that her dream has at last been realized, and I should be the most selfish girl in the world if I didn't rejoice at her good fortune."
She smiled through her tears at Mabel, who rushed over to her and exclaimed:
"Jessica, dearest, you know perfectly well how much I do and always shall love you, and Grace and Anne and Nora, too."
The four girls lingered a few moments, then said good-bye to Mrs. Allison and Mabel, who was to remain for the present with her mother. She kissed her friends tenderly, promising to see them the next day.
"I'll be in school to-morrow unless mother needs me here," she said with such a world of fond pride in her voice that the girls who had so willingly befriended her felt that their loss was a matter of small consequence when compared with the glorious fact that Mabel had come into her own.
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